Brothers: Legacy of the Twice-Dead God (42 page)

“I just need you to push the experiences
through the two masses at the same time,” he said, smiling
beatifically at me. He was putting on quite a show. “It… hurt when
I tried and I lost concentration too easily.”

Yeah, I bet it did. We were up to sixteen and
the twists were more obvious with missing time periods. Even
conversations that seemed totally unrelated had sound dropouts in
them. Phone lists were blurred. Correspondence and e-mails looked
like de-classified government documents with abundant redactions.
He was very thorough in whatever he was trying to excise.

Then around his twentieth birthday, there was
a three-month period that was totally blocked out, just before he
and his father came to Savannah. Then the cutouts got just plain
strange. He’d cut a few seconds or minutes out. I knew because I
was in them and I remembered them myself. I listened in on
conversation between his father and him about how they weren’t
supposed to do anything with magic while they were around me
because my father asked them not to but neither knew why, just that
it was important to my parents. They both thought it very odd for
them, but conceded. Then I’d watch Peter sneak glances at me but
block the pictures out. Strange. Not constantly, just sometimes.
Then they left and the cutouts and drop-offs declined. There were
periods over the next three years where they’d spike some, but
nothing like in Savannah or his sixteenth birthday. I didn’t know
what to make of it.

We came out of his “Walk of Life” to the
simulacrum floating in space. I examined the models briefly, seeing
what Peter had planned.

“It looks like it will work to me,” I said
mildly, but not really knowing for certain. I was still uneasy
about what I’d seen him doing and wished I had more time and a lot
more help in the decision making. Peter needed access to his
intellectual and emotional centers to see what he was doing was
wrong. He wasn’t completely there yet, working with half remembered
thoughts and wishes in a deeply complex subconscious mind. He had
access to his memories, obviously, but there was a facet of himself
he didn’t like or want that he thought he could eliminate. I
neither knew if this would do it or if it was a good idea to
try.

“Okay, Peter, let’s give this a try, then,” I
said. I tugged a little power out of the battery in Peter’s cavern,
a thin blue strand for health and broke it into two, stretching and
twining the two pieces between my fingers. Walking back to the
representation of Peter’s life, I pushed the ends down at the
present end of Peter’s life and paused, looking down the long path
back.

I turned to Peter as he watched me anxiously.
I had a decision to make that I was definitely not qualified to
make, morally or ethically. But I wanted my friend back. “Peter, I
love you for you and I want you back. Not some robot you created. I
hope you can forgive me for this.”

I raced down the path, retrieving every
erased memory, every dropped sound, and every blacked-out and
blurred character of text that Peter had made and dropped the blue
strings of power at his first memory and slammed my power into
place in the damaged places in Peter’s soul with every drop of care
and concern I could muster. Then I backed out of him.

Looking down at his prone body, there was
still damage to those three areas, but it was connected now and
working together. He was traumatized, to be sure. His uniform was a
bloody mess. Right now, he looked like he was sleeping. He sighed,
then, and rolled over on his right side, tightening his hold on my
hand as he did.

The field suddenly got quiet as a squad of
referees surrounded us. I stood as they lifted the litter and
escorted us off the field quickly. Kieran took one side of me with
Ethan on the other side of Peter until we came to the entrance,
then Kieran took the lead, with Ethan at the rear. They led us back
to the locker room, transferring Peter to a raised table that
wasn’t there before.

Ethan and Kieran started undressing Peter,
getting the bloody uniform off of him. I ran Kieran off. “You’re
exhausted,” I said. “Go. Sit down and eat something. We can get
this.”

“You’re one to talk,” he muttered, but headed
for the food anyway. Ethan just chuckled and kept struggling with
Peter’s arm and shirt, trying not to jostle him much.

“And you’re not far behind him,” I said
sternly to Ethan. “Y’all were amazing out there. I really don’t
know how to thank you for what you did.”

“There’s nothing to thank us for, Seth,” said
Ethan, mildly, as he split the collar of Peter’s shirt and tugged
it over his head. He cocked his head slightly, looking at Peter.
“Kieran, could you come over here?”

Kieran came and stood beside Ethan, looking
at Peter and munching thoughtfully on a piece of the nasty purple
fruit. He raised an eyebrow at whatever he saw that I didn’t.

“Well, we thought it would happen sooner or
later,” he said, off-handedly. “I wonder what the trigger was?”

“What would happen?” I asked.

Ethan looked up at me, then stepped back
suddenly, surprised. “I can see you now! Kier… and you!” He had
turned to Kieran to say something but had stopped.

“What do you mean, see me now?” I asked with
irritation.

“I get it now. ‘Little Brother,’ I understand
what you meant by that,” he said. A smile crept across his face and
with his aura started glowing at me. For the first time, instead of
a very faint afterimage, I was seeing Eth’anok’avel in his full
glory, just as I saw Kieran in his. Finally.

“Well, clue me in, then,” I said as I looked
around the room for something to wash Peter with. Ethan was almost
as hard to look at as Kieran.

“It’s all about family, isn’t it?” Ethan
said, turning to Kieran. “Not just bloodlines, but the bonding as
well.”

“That’s my guess,” said Kieran, nodding. “I
don’t know what Seth did while he was dealing with Peter, but he
got Peter to break down a lot of walls he’d built around himself
and he accepted his bond with Seth. That created the link he
needed.”

“What are ya’ll talking about?” I asked. I’d
had all the frustration I could deal with today.

“Two things, really,” said Kieran. “One,
Peter’s aura will probably be invisible to everybody, like ours,
and two, he’s a member of our family, now.” He popped the last of
the purple fruit into his mouth and stretched out onto the nearest
bench slowly, groaning.

“I’d pretty much thought of him that way
since he came down to Atlanta,” I said, searching through the
lockers for towels or a basin or something. “I mean, he didn’t have
to do any of what he’s done. And there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for
him now.” I slammed the last locker shut and sat down hard on the
bench.

“Kieran,” I said, my voice quavering, “I
think I screwed up. Maybe pretty bad.”

“No, ya’ didn’t, ya’ dumbass,” said Ethan,
hitting me in the back of the head with a wet towel. “I don’t even
know what you think the problem is, you just have to look at him to
know that. Seth, look at him.” Ethan laid a steamy towel across
Peter’s hips and dropped another towel into the pewter basin on the
floor at his feet. He stared at me while he bent to wring the towel
out. “Let’s not make this a test of strength between me and the
Stone,” he said blandly, “I’m not sure it would take your side,
anyway.”

I snorted through the still warm towel as I
wiped my face and neck. He may be right there. Not a supposition I
really wanted to test, though we really needed to find out more
about that somehow. I got up and went to look at Peter, lying on a
tabletop. He looked so… normal to me. His body was fine. His aura
was still marred, but it looked to be mending, growing like it
should be, a little fast actually.

“I don’t see anything,” I said, sullenly.

“That’s his point, Seth,” said Kieran from
the bench.

Ethan nodded as he laid another towel down
Peter’s legs, wrapping around to get to all the dried blood. “His
body and mind have been hurt so badly that it is highly unlikely
that he’ll remember anything that happened from the time he got
hurt to the time he wakes up. When he does wake up, he will be
better off than he was before he got hit. You were dealing with his
subconscious mind, with feelings and desires that he may not have
been aware of, much less been in control of. And whatever you did,
said, or showed him got him to accept you as a constant in his
life. Someone as important to him as his father, his brother or his
son, and not just a friend.”

Peter shifted on the table a little, pushing
at the towel on his hips.

“Good,” said Ethan, “He’s starting to wake
up. Why don’t you answer the door and I’ll see if I can’t roust him
and get him in the shower and changed.”

The loud knock on the door startled me, more
from Ethan’s prophecy than the actual knock.

“That’ll be either Cahill, MacNamara, or
both,” said Kieran, not moving from the bench he was laying on.

I went to open the door, swiping a piece of
some sort of meat of the food table as I went. It vaguely looked
like sliced turkey, so I assumed and ate it. I opened the door and
found Kieran’s prediction to be true, but with a few additions.
Cahill was here and MacNamara, along with Florian. The two women,
though, weren’t expected. Flanking MacNamara stood the Summer and
Winter Queens of the Faery.

“Um, Ehran? We have company.”

“Seth, go help Ethan,” Kieran said from
behind me. “Mr. Cahill, Señor Florian, welcome, please come in.”
Kieran stepped aside enough to let the two men slip in past him
then filled the doorway again, turning to the elves. “MacNamara, we
have had a rough day. Your consort is not particularly welcome here
at the moment.”

MacNamara had a smile on his face that looked
like it would never come off.

“Do not push us, Ehran McClure,” said the
Winter Queen, narrowing her eyes, her voice haughty and far less
melodic than during her earlier spell.

“An apprentice handled the daughters
earlier,” said Kieran with equal severity, “I assure you the master
can handle the mothers with similar aplomb. And when the master is
the son of Robert McClure, ask yourselves, Queens of Fairy, how
much you stand to lose.”

My head shot up to stare at Kieran’s back.
He’d just threatened, by his admission, the two strongest beings in
Faery, possibly the universe. In front of witnesses. Cahill and
Florian were exchanging shocked looks about it, too. They moved
into the corner of the locker room away from the door, presumably
out of the line of fire. But the Sidhe were backing down.

“That is precisely what we wish to talk to
you about, McClure,” said the Summer Queen, sweet as a summer
breeze. I swear I smelled honeysuckle growing somewhere in the
locker room. “Meet us at the Crossroads, then, McClure, at your
discretion, but do not tarry. Yours is not the only life that hangs
in the balance.” Then they were gone, without a dust mote out of
place or the slightest touch of power used.

“Aren’t they a lovely pair?” said MacNamara
as Kieran stepped back from the door and allowed him in, his silky
casual outfit glimmering in the light. One of his proxies shut the
door behind them, but they stayed at the door. He turned to Cahill
and Florian, putting his finger to his lips and said, “Shh. I don’t
get to talk often, so let’s keep this our secret, yes?”

“Who’s shouting?” croaked Peter, barely
audibly. Ethan had gotten him to wake finally.

“Hey, buddy, how’r’ya feelin’,” I said
softly, leaning in close to him, everybody else in the room
forgotten for the moment.

“Tired. What happened?” he asked, a little
louder. He tried to lift his head, but dropped it back down almost
immediately. His hands were wandering through the air
unsteadily.

“You got hurt pretty bad,” said Ethan, moving
in closer opposite me. “You think you can sit up for us? I’ll help
you. Just go real slow, now.” Ethan slipped his arm under Peter’s
neck and lifted him slowly up into sitting position, doing all the
work himself. I moved over to his side to help.

“I see that young Mr. Borland has contracted
the same invisibility disease that the three of you have,” said
MacNamara from the center of the room. “For a moment there, I
thought he had died.”

I slowly pulled Peter’s legs off the side of
the table so we could pick him up and get him to the showers.

“He do it again?” asked Peter, quietly, of
Ethan, his head cradled in Ethan’s elbow as he turned on the
table.

“How is he even alive?” Cahill asked in stark
disbelief.

“Strong constitution and good, clean living,”
said Kieran, smiling. “How is Olivia?”

“We honestly do not know,” said Cahill,
nervously, looking back and forth between Kieran and us.
“Physically, she was badly hurt. She’s under physician’s care at
the moment with half a dozen healers at his disposal.”

“Can you guys turn down the lights? It’s so
bright in here,” Peter whispered as Ethan and I lifted him off the
table with his arms across our shoulders. He was heavier than he
looked, lean muscles on a lithe body.

“’Fraid not, Petey,” said Ethan with a grin.
“You’re seeing us, now. He did it again, remember?”

“Her mind is the problem,” continued Cahill.
“She is locked behind something we don’t recognize and we can’t
break through it. We can’t even analyze it. It’s like we’re not
even seeing the base cause. It is most perplexing.”

“Go slow, buddy, we need to get you cleaned
up here,” I murmured to Peter, trying to listen to conversation and
still take care of him.

“I’ve got him,” said Ethan. “Go turn on the
water.”

I slid out of Peter’s grasp and ran ahead to
the showers. The first “stall,” for lack of a better word, had a
shelf we could sit Peter on and angle the showerhead toward him. I
got the water going lukewarm, then stripped off, tossing my clothes
off to the side without concern. I took Peter from Ethan and eased
us both into the spray while Ethan disrobed, tossing his clothes on
top of mine.